It could also be used to desalinate seawater or in other industrial processes, or even ramped up to produce electricity, she said.

Halas, a chemist, was the lead scientist on the solar steam project; the details were published online this week in the American Chemical Society's journal ACS Nano.

“What's unique about this technology is you can develop it into relatively small footprint sources of energy, off-grid,” Halas said.

Steam is one of society's oldest technologies, the power source behind the Industrial Revolution. Merging it with nanoparticles could help to solve some of the thorniest problems facing the developing world, Halas said.

She said a conversation with Rebecca Richards-Kortum, chairwoman of the department of bioengineering at Rice and a force behind the university's push to create technologies to address health and social problems in the developing world, gave her new insight into ways the technology could be used.

Nanoparticles are the subject of much scientific inquiry, ranging from biomedical research to electronics projects. A nanoparticle is a microscopic particle, about 50,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

One of Halas' earlier creations, gold nanoshells, are being studied in several clinical trials for cancer treatment.

The solar steam project differs from conventional photovoltaic solar panels. For one thing, Halas said it is far more efficient, with an overall energy efficiency of 24 percent, compared to a top efficiency of 12 percent to 15 percent for traditional solar panels.

The process works by submerging light-capturing nanoparticles into water. When exposed to sunlight, they heat up and vaporize the water to create steam.

“It takes a lot of energy to heat water,” Halas said. “You think about making pasta, making tea, you don't get steam until you heat a large volume of water to the boiling point. We're short-cutting that by putting nanoparticles in water to generate steam directly.”

She said a variety of nanoparticles would work. In conjunction with Rice graduate student Oara Neumann, Halas designed a particle activated by both visible sunlight and shorter wavelengths that humans can't see.

“The key thing is they have to absorb light across the solar spectrum,” she said. “They have to be black.”

The solar project was supported in part by grants from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Welch Foundation.

Halas said work to move the project into the field is under way. “This is not something that's 20 years away,” she said.